Congress must do more than warn against scammers | Editorial

In a way, it should be no surprise that polls show many Americans have no problem choosing someone convicted of a crime to be their next president. This country is so inundated with felonious conduct that too many of us accept larceny as just another unfortunate fact of life — especially when it comes to politics.

Consider Philadelphia’s laundry list of politicians turned felons that includes former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, former City Councilmembers Rick Mariano and Bobby Henon, former state House Speaker John M. Perzel, former State Sen. Vincent Fumo, and former District Attorney Seth Williams, the city’s chief prosecutor.

Larceny has grown to astounding levels in this technological age where the internet, cell phones, texting, and social media have made it easier to fleece the unwitting. That is especially true when it comes to seniors, who last year lost more than $3.4 billion through romance and grandparent scams, technical support fraud, and other schemes.

“We are at a crisis level,” said Kathy Stokes, a director at AARP’s Fraud Watch Network. “So many people have joined the fray because it is pretty easy to be a criminal. They don’t have to follow any rules. And you can make a lot of money, and then there’s very little chance that you’re going to get caught.”

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But it’s not just older Americans who are scammed. The Federal Trade Commission says American consumers lost a record $10 billion to fraud last year, which was a 14% increase over reported losses in 2022. Most of the losses, $4.6 billion, occurred in investment schemes, while another $2.7 billion was bilked through impostor scams.

The FTC says email displaced text messages last year as the most common method used by flimflam artists. Phone calls became the second most common method used by schemers in 2023, which is interesting since for decades phone calls were the most common scam vehicle. Perhaps the telephone’s resurgence suggests it is the preferred communication device of older adults. But some schemes are much more elaborate.

The family of an 80-year-old San Diego man told the Associated Press that criminals stole almost $700,000 from him in a complex scheme involving a nonexistent Amazon order, a fake refund processing center in Hong Kong, and instructions to synchronize his bank accounts to get his refund. The family sued his bank for making several large wire transfers of cash without asking questions of the account holder. But they didn’t win.

“We need our banks to get better because they are the first line of defense,” said the man’s daughter. But banking industry officials say they can’t prevent fraud without more help from the federal government, whose current efforts they described as disjointed and uncoordinated.

Yes, this is yet another problem that Congress should address, but it needs to be with more fervor than it has so far given technology issues involving artificial intelligence and social media sites.

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Congress did pass a resolution this year designating May 15 as National Senior Fraud Awareness Day, which notes that “law enforcement agencies, consumer protection groups, area agencies on aging, and financial institutions all play vital roles in preventing the proliferation of scams targeting seniors.” But the resolution offers no plan or promise of funding to coordinate those efforts.

If the writers of the resolution — a bipartisan coalition led by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins — are serious about what it says, they need to come up with legislation that does more than pay lip service to this problem.

In the meantime, it’s up to us, the vulnerable, to protect ourselves from swindlers.

Accordingly, the National Institute on Aging recommends that you never give out sensitive personal information such as your Social Security number over the phone or in response to an email, social media post, or text message, check bills and statements for charges you didn’t authorize, and never transfer money or buy a gift card to pay someone over the phone.

Scoundrels, including politicians, are waiting for us to unwittingly open the door for their thievery. Many shamed swindle victims choose to accept their losses rather than report them to authorities. Such meekness has become common in a country that too easily accepts being defrauded as inevitable. Our lack of effective safeguards to prevent scammers’ thievery has encouraged grifters to rob us not only of our wealth but our dignity.

It shouldn’t be so easy to do that.